Burning Bridges

A fearless writer asks: what makes artists create?

Hendrik DeyWORD BY WORD Author Tom Bissell's book of essays 'Magic Hours' was 12 years in the making.

What impulse drives people to create? And who chooses such an (often) unappreciated, solitary voyage in the first place?

These are two of the central questions explored over a 12-year period by author Tom Bissell, whose new nonfiction collection, Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation (Believer Books, $14), highlights a cross-section of writers, artists and filmmakers—from the relatively obscure to the relatively famous—all connected by their ability to produce something from nothing.

A "magic hour" is the cinematic term for brief periods at dawn and dusk that allow for filming and create striking visual effects. Bissell also uses it as an apt descriptor for the somewhat mystical, hard-to-explain process of creation itself. There is much to appreciate in these pieces, not the least of which is the author's empathy and deep curiosity, along with a willingness to argue anybody down. These aren't all glowing appreciations—in some cases, they're the exact opposite.

In the book's opener, "Unflowered Aloes," Bissell argues that classic literature, and its survival, is more arbitrary than one may realize. Much of what is celebrated a hundred years after it's published is happenstance, Bissell writes, oftentimes owing to a single influential critic, interjecting family member or even (as in the case of Moby Dick) an unlikely discovery in a bookstore's used bin.

And what about the aspiring Melvilles out there, those who just need a bit of guidance to create their own timeless classic? Be warned, budding writers, that not every how-to manual you pull off the bookshelf is particularly helpful, Bissell reports. In a piece called "Writing About Writing About Writing," Bissell cunningly uses clunky passages of writerly advice against their creators, disputing long-held truths line by line. The simple act of throwing a writer's words back in his or her face is both potent and hilarious.

Bissell doesn't have a lot of patience for perceived phoniness, cutting down Natalie Goldberg, author of the bestselling WritingDown the Bones, whom he calls a "cunning egomaniac." Nor does Bissell pull punches when it comes to Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, some of which he considers "beneath her readers." And Bissell even takes Stephen King to task for occasionally pretending to be dumb in his own On Writing.

Bissell also discusses creation as it pertains to war, examining some of the documentary films that have come out of Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade, which serve as one of the few real ways to bring some of the horrors of war back home. Sometimes, as in the piece about an indie movie filming in his tiny hometown of Escanaba, Mich., he is a man revisiting his past. Other times, a lingering interest in a subject will lead to a meditation on writing, creation and life. And whether he's examining David Foster Wallace, Two and a Half Men or voice-acting in video games, Bissell (only 37 this year) seems to have a lot of this stuff figured out. He's had his share of magic hours himself.